"Why, yes," I said, trying to pass it off. "I have been there and everywhere."
Cousin Tom put the pipe back again into his mouth.
"And there is another matter," I said (for Hare Street suited me very well as a lodging, and I had named it as such to His Majesty). "It is not right, Cousin Tom, that you should keep me here for nothing. Let me pay something each month—" (And I named a suitable sum.)
That determined Cousin Tom altogether. My speaking of Whitehall had greatly reassured him; and now this offer of mine made up his mind; for he was something of a skinflint in some respects. (For all that I did for him when I was here, in the fields and at the farm, more than repaid him for the expense of my living there.) He protested a little, and said that between kinsfolk no such question should enter in; but he protested with a very poor grace; and so the matter was settled, and we both satisfied.
* * * * *
So, once more, the time began to pass very agreeably for me. Here was I, safe from all the embroilments of town, in the same house with my Cousin Dorothy, and with plenty of leisure for my languages again. Yet my satisfaction was greatly broken up when I heard, on the last day of January that all that I had feared was come about, and that of the three men whom I had seen condemned at the Old Bailey, two—Mr. Ireland and Mr. Grove—had been executed seven days before: (Mr. Pickering was kept back on some excuse, and not put to death until May). The way I heard of it was in this manner.
I was in Puckeridge one day, on a matter which I do not now remember, and was going to the stable of the White Hart inn to get my horse to ride back again, when I ran into Mr. Rumbald who was there on the same errand. I was in my country suit, and very much splashed; and it was going on for evening, so he noticed nothing of me but my face.
"Why, Mallock," he cried—"It is Mr. Mallock, is it not?"
I told him yes.
He exchanged a few words with me, for he was one of those fellows who when they have once made up their minds to a thing, do not easily change it, and he was persuaded that I was of his kind and something of a daredevil too, which was what he liked. Then at the end he said something which made me question him as to what he meant.